As much as I love Seattle -- I've visited here more than any other place where I never actually lived -- it's a good thing that, with the hour-long exception of yesterday afternoon's sublime clearing, the weather has been really, really bad. For all my animus against Arizona's heat and desiccation, I am realizing how much I've gotten used to not having wet socks! I wish I could have more of the weather that bitterlawngnome and danthered had during their recent visit. Prior to the trip, I had contemplated driving out into the hinterlands to see Mt. Rainier. But that would be a futile exercise this weekend.

You're looking at content from my Live Journal, which I have been keeping since 2003. I consider it a personal blog, though it lacks stream-of-consciousness revelations that typify that genre.

That said, if you manage to discern the confessional mode within entries that are superficially tight-lipped, I will reward you handsomely. Or at least pretend to do so.

In addition to reflections, however mediated, on my daily activities, De File features periodic excavations of material from my "files," a revelation sure to disturb anyone who has seen my garage. It's an experiment in integrating past and present, perhaps with a little redemption along the way.

Politics is always on my mind, but rarely explicit here. I’m working on a theory about what personal writing like this does to literary identification and why some people resist its pull so powerfully. But my goal is to make that theory dissolve in my practice, a density in liquid.

You'll note that I have links to blogs not on LiveJournal directly above, as well as assorted websites of note. The blogs I read regularly on LiveJournal itself fall under "FRIENDS" at the top, for those of you unfamiliar with LJ’s workings.

You can write me. I'm "cbertsch" before the circle-a and "comcast.net" after it.